[Blueblaze]

The idea of driving to an island paradise in the middle of the ocean has fascinated me since I was a kid (not to mention the image of Jamie Lee Curtis dangling from a bridge while Arnold rescues her with a Harrier jump-jet!). So when we finally realized we had a week with nothing else going on, we drove down to check it out.

OK, the over-ocean drive was pretty cool, even if there was only one giant bridge. It was almost an hour away from Key West, so you had to wonder why it took Arnold in a jet so long to stop that truck with the nuke. As we were driving over it, I realized that the whole scene had taken place on that little one-lane broken bridge down there next to us, about 20 feet above the ocean, not way up here where we were. Oh, well, that's Hollywood, for you! It was still neat to count down the tiny islands as we drove through them, glimpsing ocean between the condos on both sides of the road.

We rented this great little apartment a couple of blocks off of Duval -- Courtney's Place, room C7 -- for $200/night. It was in a little courtyard surrounded by "Conch" houses that had been converted to rooms and suites. Ours had a privacy-fenced front entry porch as well as a back door entrance to Petronia Street. It had an entire kitchenette, complete with granite counters, full-size fridge, microwave, and a stovetop, in a little alcove off the sitting area. There was a leather hide-a-bed sofa at the foot of the king-size bed, and the floors were Mexican tile. Very nice. They were also very dog-friendly, and even had parking (since we arrived on a Wednesday -- it was full by the weekend). But you don't need a car on the island, so we never moved it. There was a free Duval Loop bus stop one block away. We didn't bother, though. Mallory Square was only a half-mile walk.

I guess we should have done the "Cheeseburger in Paradise" instead of a sloppy joe at "Sloppy Joe's". $20 for a bun with some watery-thin yankee-style chile-with-beans poured over it. If there was any meat in it, I must have missed it. But the waitress was a sweet lady our own age, who brought our dog a bowl of water, so she got a good tip, anyway. Most places were dog-friendly, except for the Aquarium (we left him in the room for that one). Our other meals were also expensively mediocre tourist food, although we did eat at a taco joint near Mallory Square that had these strange little square tacos with pickled onions that were really good. Looking at the map, I think it must have been the Amigos Tortilla Bar.

I highly recommend the Trolley Tour (also not dog-friendly). I couldn't believe how many interesting little museums we drove by on the tour. The Aquarium was small but interesting. I never knew nurse sharks were such polite feeders. They basically lined up and took their turn as the lady fed them pieces of fish. We did the Shipwreck Museum, which was worth the money just for the guide in the basement. He was a real hoot.

We toured the Earnest Hemingway House, which they said was the largest private home on the island. I think they must have meant the lot (about 1-1/2 acres), because I doubt that the house was 2000 sqft, total. I counted 3 bedrooms. You'd think such a rich guy could have afforded a countertop in his bathroom! All the bathrooms were very primitive. He didn't build the house. It looks mid-century-modern from the outside, but it was actually built in the 1800's. He bought it for the taxes -- $3,000 -- after the original owner died and his heirs squandered it suing each other. It had stood empty for 30 years by the time Hemingway came along. It has the largest swimming pool on the island, which his wife built for the astronomical sum of $20,000, while he was off covering some war. When he came home to find that she had replaced his private boxing ring with a pool, he was so mad that he ran off with his 4th wife and moved to Cuba. He actually only lived in that house for 9 years, until 1939, but he wrote most of his best novels in his studio in the converted hay loft in the carriage house. For some unknown reason, they breed 6-toed cats there, and there are 40-or-so of them roaming the property, and little cat houses everywhere. Their watering trough is a fancy Spanish tile urinal that Ernie swiped from Sloppy Joe's, while he helped his friend, the owner, move all the furnishings to the present location (because the previous building raised the rent $1/month!).

The worst thing about Key West was the heat. In early June, it felt exactly like our native Houston in August, even though it never hit 90 degrees while we were there. The moment you stepped out of the A/C, you were drenched in sweat, even at 7:00 in the morning. The 2nd worst thing was the natives, who all seemed so desperately stoned at all hours of the day. You could get high from the smell of burning weed, just walking down the street. There is a place outside the public bathroom at Mallory Square, where the bums just sit half-dressed in lawn chairs all day, drinking out of paper bags (I'm not sure why they bother -- we never saw a cop the whole time we were there). And if the locals weren't trying to sell you something, they just seemed mad at you. The whole place reminded me of "Pleasure Island" from Pinocchio. I think I finally understand why the Lost Boys turned into "donkeys" after so much partying. Disney just cleaned up the original word that also means "donkey"!

We both grew up in Kansas watching Tarzan movies, so we had to drive back on the "Tamiami Trail" (highway 41), through the Everglades. We'd been raised to believe that the Everglades was the only authentic jungle in the United States, but I'm not sure why that myth exists in Kansas, since "glades" means "grass". I guess we still thought we might glimpse Johnny Weissmuller swinging though the trees on a grape vine. In fact, it looked exactly like western Kansas when the wheat is ready to cut. And we didn't see a single alligator or python in that big drainage ditch that follows the road. But when we got to the Big Cypress State Park Visitor Center, they did have a couple of captive alligators in a pond with a boardwalk overhead. We didn't get to look inside the building. It's only open on weekends. I read that it was originally an airport with a big four-engine Lockheed Constellation on the roof. I would have liked to have seen that, but, of course, that's probably the first thing the gooberment removed when they got the place. While Big Cypress Park was a little more jungly than the Everglades, it has nothing on the Atchafalaya Swamp in Louisiana.

Oh, if you do this trip, be sure to stop at the only place to eat on the Trail -- Joanie's Blue Crab. They were out of Blue Crab, but the fried grouper was great, and the service and ambiance even better. I wish I could remember the waitress's name. Lisa, maybe? She was hilarious. Also, check out the worlds smallest post office, across the street. "Lisa" was real jealous because the post office guy has A/C and the Blue Crab doesn't.

The rest of the trip was spent battling traffic through one wreck after another on Route 75. I felt like I'd been transported back in time to my old Houston commute -- only 4 hours longer.

But otherwise, we had a good time. There was a lot of stuff we didn't see, but I think this is going to be a "do once" sort of trip. The one thing that the heat down south and the traffic on Highway 75 taught me was that we sure picked the best part of Florida to live in!